Joel Crabbe

Summary

I am a computer games programmer with experience in all aspects of entertainment software development covering tools, game and engine design and implementation. I have over 12 years professional experience and have released games on a variety of hardware. I love making games and have been honing my skills as a hobbyist and a professional for more than 22 years.

Master of Information Technology

1998 - 2000

Bachelor of Information Technology

Peer Recommendations

“As Lead Designer I previously worked closely with Joel as our main Character Programmer, who was responsible for implementing the main vision of the game. Joel can without a doubt be relied upon to take responsibility for not only his own, but other peoples work by helping out wherever he can.

He is always willing to help, listen and approach new ideas and always wants to know how, what and why when taking on tasks. This is because he strives to complete his tasks efficiently and makes sure he understands what is requested and why in the scheme of things, to get it done right. If there is a problem I could rely on Joel to step through it with me to work out what the source of the problem is and to solve it efficiently and effectively. Joel will get the job done and never settles for second best. It was great to work Joel, and a real shame for me to see him move to Melbourne, as together we were able to get some very creative and efficient work done, in budget and on time, and had great fun doing it.” September 10, 2010

“Joel is well-known across the entire studio as a talented programmer who not only understands what's required, but gets to the solution fast, and communicates with you during the process. He provides a lot of creative ideas for whatever project he's working on, and is also one of those guys who helps keep a whole team buzzing and interested in a project, through his own enthusiasm and motivation. One of the good guys.” September 2, 2010

“Joel is an intelligent, skilled, and highly dependable Senior Game Programmer. I've worked with Joel on 3 different projects in recent years, and in each case he has made himself a critical member of the programming team. He works well with fellow programmers and artists alike, and continually shows the dedication to do whatever is necessary to make sure milestones and ship dates are met. I would have no hesitation in assigning him any programming tasks required for a project. He is especially valuable at the end of a project, where he can be relied upon to both close out bugs and add the extra polish required to make a game stand out. Any programming team will undoubtedly be stronger with Joel on it.” September 2, 2010

"I have worked with Joel across three titles. Early on, his ability to approach problems as both a resource conscious coder and a gamer impressed me – and I requested Joel for each successive project. Joel’s greatest strength is his ability to discuss the project with the different departments in their own language and infer the information into tangible results. He can speak to Design as a Designer, and to Artists as an Artist – and create code than understands the intent of the direction. Joel ensures that the end gameplay direction is qualified before coding and is able to autonomously make judgment calls within the code to fit the desired result. It’s his ability to take a problem and turn it into a hands-with-controller solution that saw him tasked with the more difficult mechanics and features that affected game-play on the Spyro and Clone Wars games. He also has a very clear understanding of the role of the Lead Coder and Production, and intrinsically understands the production of AVIs, screenshots and summary reports of progress and projected dates and possible issues. His ability to create code understanding the need for ease of movement in balancing, and the importance of thoroughly testing his own work helped to ensure Joel’s code was unusually low on bugs compared to our standard bug creation projection rates. This left Joel available to close other bugs within the database – of which he was both incredibly accommodating and understanding of from a production view and incredibly fast from a coding view." August 25, 2010

“Joel has been with Krome for five years, joining the studio in Melbourne just over two years ago. The Melbourne studio boasts a strong staff of extemely talented and experienced coders, yet Joel distinguished himself in this elite group quickly. On his first title in Melbourne - Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen - he quickly became a critical part of the team, not only because of his in-depth understanding of the MKII engine, but also because of the extremely elegant and clean code he wrote, not only for early, important levels of the game, but also for the very critical Boss Levels. During this aggressive production schedule, he not only put in exceptional hours, but also sought out additional tasks and still managed to write superior code. Since then, he has consistantly been sought out by team leaders - in both Melbourne and Brisbane - because of his ability, reliability and sheer stamina. At our request, he has worked effortlessy on the Engine side as well as the Game Code side, always delivering more than required or expected. He frequently asks to be loaded up with tasks when he anticipates he will have free time - even when the time is after hours and weekends. Even amongst an exceptionally solid group of peers, Joel is a truly remarkable programmer. I cannot recommend him highly enough.” August 20, 2010.

"On Clone Wars: Lightsaber duels I worked closely with Joel in his role as senior programmer. Joel was a pleasure to work with, his work was always done impressively fast and any bugs would also be fixed quickly. He was easy to communicate with and because of this his work always met our needs perfectly. In particular the camera system Joel made for CW:LSD was powerful, configurable and easy to test. This meant we had an easy time making awesome looking cameras for the game. Joel is easily one of the best programmers I've worked with in my 7 year game dev career, his work ethic, day to day attitude and dedication to his work is impressive and inspiring. I hope to get to work with Joel again.” February 8, 2009.

I worked closely with Joel over the course of a couple of projects, where he implemented the majority of the props and effects that I was tasked with creating. The experience was exemplary. He created flexible, re-useable systems that exposed plenty of parameters to the artists, and he did this with great speed, competence and enthusiasm. He was very approachable, always making time to discuss what he was doing and explain why. The man is a well of talent and ideas, and I wish I still had someone of his calibre in my corner.” January 24, 2009.

“Joel is a highly knowledgeable and highly motivated programmer. He takes pride in everything he does, which flows onto his work quality. He is well aware of project pressures on time and resources, and adapts his work well to provide solutions for all those requirements. He understands other peoples roles in a team, and takes their situations into account in everything he does. He is quite curious and constantly learning new skills. I would recomend Joel to any employer, and would gladly work with him again.” January 16, 2009.

“Joel is an extremely capable and talented games programmer. I've had the pleasure of working with him on a few titles as QA Project Lead at Krome Studios. Joel's willingness to help and teach others definitely makes the development process a much smoother one. He has an extremely positive attitude, strong work ethic, and a selfless, fun personality. Joel would be a definite asset to anyone’s team.” October 12, 2008.

“Joel is a very dedicated programmer who believes strongly in delivering a good, solid product. He's very good at developing systems quickly and then following up with the rest of the team to make sure the system is not just done, but working correctly as well. He's open to input, documents well and cares about making systems that are both powerful and easy to use. Joel is one of the better programmers I've worked with.” October 6, 2008